How Human Nature dotes
On what it can’t detect.
The moment that a Plot is plumbed
Prospective is extinct —

Prospective is the friend
Reserved for us to know
When Constancy is clarified
Of Curiosity —

Of subjects that resist
Redoubtablest is this
Where go we —
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem How Human Nature dotes

1 Comment

  1. Stewart Denslow says:

    The first two stanzas are of greatest interest to me. They encapsulate in very fundamental language the concept of “looking for THE ANSWER”. The usual quips about one meets in life, such as “curiosity killed the cat” and “too many questions” are so deftly by-passed. All of the questions of humanity are neatly encompassed, from the nature of meaning to who is sleeping with whom. The final verse is inevitable but somehow to me is not quite as powerful. It does, however, make it clear that none of us can deny this “will to question”. I will end my wordy comment by suggesting an analogy to Nietzsche’s Will to Power and Eternal Recurrance.

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